We are excited to have guest blogger, Willi Galloway share a little from her new book, GROW COOK EAT!
Homegrown food just tastes better. It’s hard to beat snacking on cherry tomatoes that are still warm from the afternoon sun or stepping outside and harvesting a handful of blueberries for breakfast. Growing your own vegetables, herbs, and small fruit gives you a chance to sample foods that almost never make an appearance in grocery stores. Edible plants produce a main crop, like beetroots or fennel bulbs or zucchini, but many vegetables and herbs also offer up a host of extra edibles—tasty leaves, flowers, seeds and seedpods that often end up tossed into the compost pile instead of salads or in a stir-fry.
These delicious crops typically do not find their way into supermarkets because they are too tender and their harvest window too short for commercial growers to bother with, but home gardeners have the luxury of harvesting plants during different stages of growth and eating food when it is perfectly ripe. When you tend a vegetable patch, you can step outside and harvest squash blossoms to stuff into quesadillas, or pick kale rabe—tightly closed kale flower buds—to steam. Growing your own food gives you the opportunity to witness the entire lifecycle of a vegetable and explore foods that you will never find packaged up in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. Below, I share five of my favorite multi-purpose edibles for spring and early summer and advice on harvesting and eating all they have to offer.
Arugula / Edible Parts: Leaves, flowers and seedpods
There are two main types of arugula: garden and wild. Garden arugula produces tender, lobed leaves with a fairly mild flavor, while wild arugula greens are deeply serrated and quite spicy. Grow both types of arugula from seed. Thin out the plants as they grow and toss the thinnings into salads, eat young leaves raw and cook older, tougher leaves as you would spinach. Use garden arugula’s pretty white and purple-veined flowers and the yellow blossoms of wild arugula as a garnish for salads. Harvest garden arugula’s crunchy, spicy seed pods just after they form and dip them in hummus.
Cilantro / Edible Parts: Leaves, flowers and seedpods
Cilantro is definitely worth growing, even if you do not care for its distinctive taste, because its seeds are the spice coriander. Cilantro leaves develop an unpleasant flavor and a feathery look as the plant goes to seed, so harvest leaves prior to that point while they are still lobed and flat. Cilantro flower stalks grow 2- to 3-feet tall and the pretty white clusters of blossoms lure pollinators to the garden and make a nice garnish. Coriander seeds have a fabulous bright, citrusy flavor that tastes entirely different from the leaves. Harvest the seeds at the green stage and use them in marinades and dressings (chop or crush them before using) or wait until the seeds turn brown before harvesting. Store dry coriander seeds in glass jars and grind just before using.
Florence Fennel / Edible Parts: Bulb, leaves, flowers, pollen and seeds
Practically every part of the fennel plant is edible and absolutely delicious. Florence fennel produces a crunchy white bulbous base and a flush of ferny green foliage. To harvest the “bulb”, slide a knife under the soil line when it grows 4 to 6 inches across and before the plant begins to lengthen and form a seed stalk. Use raw fennel bulb as a substitute for parsley or cook it with onions. Snip off the feathery leaves whenever you like, adding them to salads, vinaigrette, and eggs. Fennel produces pretty, umbrella-shaped yellow flower heads; pinch off the individual flowers and use them as a garnish. Or, gather big bunches of flowers just after they open and hang them upside down in a brown paper bag. As they dry, they will release their pollen, which has a subtle anise flavor. Sprinkle the pollen over fish or mild, soft goat cheese. Harvest the seeds when they turn brown and save the dry seed in a glass jar. Use it to flavor pastries and bread.
Kale / Edible Parts: Leaves, flower buds and flowers
Kale is the perfect plant for Pacific Northwest vegetable gardens. This beautiful vegetable thrives all year and produces huge yields. Varieties like ‘Redbor’ feature deeply curled leaves, while ‘Lacinato’ grows nearly 4 feet tall with long, dark green, crumpled leaves, and ‘Red Russian’ has serrated, smooth purplish grey leaves. Harvest kale leaves from the bottom up. To eat kale raw, harvest young 2- to 4-inch long leaves or slice mature leaves into narrow 1/8 inch ribbons. Braise or stir-fry mature kale leaves. Flower buds that look like mini broccoli heads form on overwintered kale. Cut these kale rabe heads when they are tightly packed and cook them like broccoli. Or, let the kale flower and eat the pretty blossoms in salads.
Radishes / Edible Parts: Roots, leaves, flowers and seedpods
The radishes found at grocery stores are invariably small, round and red. But these spicy roots come in an astonishing variety of colors and both round, cylindrical, and conical shapes. Sow radish seed thickly so you can thin out and eat the spicy sprouts in salads. Harvest the roots just as their shoulders pop up out of the soil. Twist off the greens and cook them like spinach. Allow a few plants to flower and go to seed. Use the flowers as a garnish. Harvest the pods just after they appear and snack on them raw. I like to dip them in Greek yogurt mixed with garlic, dill and olive oil.
This article was adapted from Willi’s new book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food-Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening, Including 50 recipes, plus harvesting and storage tips (Sasquatch Books, 2012). Willi writes about organic vegetable gardening and seasonal cooking on her blog DigginFood.com.
Leave a Reply